Bowing to Technology:
Fiddling in Cyberspace

By

Barrymore Laurence Scherer

Updated Dec. 30, 2004 12:01 a.m. ET

Of all string instruments in classical music, the violin is king. Such great composers as Bach, Mozart and Johann Strauss II were violinists, and numerous great violinists were also accomplished composers, from Baroque master Giuseppe Tartini to Nicolo Paganini, Pablo Sarasate and Fritz Kriesler. In every era, leading violinists wrote instructional treatises that codified the most advanced playing technique of their time -- Mozart's father, Leopold, wrote a standard one, and major 20th-century works include volumes by Karl Flesch...